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IHT/ ERIKA / TOTAL FINA DISASTER HI
Subject: IHT/ ERIKA / TOTAL FINA DISASTER HITS THE ISLANDS AND COASTLINE
IHT
Paris, Friday, December 24, 1999
Black Christmas on Coast of France
Drifting Oil From Tanker Menaces Nature and
People's
Livelihood
By Anne Swardson Washington Post Service
ILE D'YEU, France - The rocky seaward shore of
this small coastal
island is called the ''Wild Coast.'' Protected as
a nature preserve, it is
populated largely by seagulls and cormorants, a
place where older locals
cast their lines for sea bass and younger ones
surf and jog.
On Thursday, helicopters soared overhead and
surveillance teams
clambered along the rocks as the Wild Coast and
other zones along
France's Atlantic coastline began preparations for
what is shaping up to
be a black Christmas.
Barring a miracle, a tide of viscous, heavy oil
from a shipwrecked tanker
will flow to the beaches, rocks, fish farms and
ports of this region as early
as Saturday.
Since the Maltese-registered Erika broke in two
and went down in rough
seas off the coast of Brittany on Dec. 12, the
10,000 tons of oil spilled
has been expected here. The French weather service
says time will run
out by early next week at the latest.
''I like to fish here, but the oil could degrade
this coast for years; we'll
have a black coast,'' said Daniel Turbe, a builder
and hobby fisherman,
as he watched a police helicopter land on a
plateau above the coastal
rocks.
The amount of oil involved is far smaller than in
1978, when the
shipwreck of the Amoco Cadiz poured 220,000 tons
of light oil onto the
shores of Brittany north of here.
In addition, the oil from the Erika, because it is
of a heavier variety,
contains fewer toxic components, said Bruno
Rebelle, director-general of
Greenpeace France. It will arrive along the shores
in scattered clumps,
not an all-covering liquid. But, he said, that
heaviness means that the oil
fragments will stick to anything they touch. ''It
will asphyxiate all forms of
life, anything it touches - algae, microfauna,
microflora,'' he said.
The French authorities have been trying to stop
the tide. Eight tugboats
have been working on pumping the oil slicks out of
the water for more
than a week.
The first attempt failed because the pumps were
insufficient to suck up
the thick, black goo. After two weeks mixing with
cold sea water, the oil
now is nearly the consistency of discarded chewing
gum, the authorities
say. It is fragmented into dozens of separate
slicks.
A different set of pumps worked more successfully,
but only about 10
percent of the oil has been removed, and pumping
will have to be
stopped in the next day or two as bad weather
moves in.
The authorities now are planning to string a
series of black,
sausage-shaped pontoons across areas that need
emergency protection,
such as ports and fish farms. They would be
anchored by a long line of
boats, public and private, stretching several
kilometers. The idea is to
steer the oil to places, such as beaches
accessible by road, where it
could be picked up and removed by truck. But the
onset of bad weather
may wreck those plans as well. Fishermen on the
island say the waves
can get so high as to thwart any effort to contain
the oil with a structure
sitting on the water.
''If the slick passes below the line, the whole
thing won't work,'' said a
fisherman, Pascal Naud. Normally, he brings in
mostly sea bass and sole,
but these days he is bringing in his lines. All of
his long lines sit on the
surface of the ocean, and the oil would foul them
up permanently, he
said.
About 170 soldiers and civil troops will spend
Christmas on the island
preparing for a massive cleanup effort. More than
2,000 people, using an
action plan designed after the Amoco Cadiz spell,
are mobilized all along
the coast.
It is not clear how successful they can be,
however, and environmental
damage is already beginning to show. Fishermen say
they are already
seeing dead gulls. Jean Noury, a fishermen charged
with collecting
oil-covered birds on the island and taking them to
the mainland to be
cleaned, said he had received 11 by lunchtime
Thursday, compared with
five Wednesday and four the day before.
Because the oil is so heavy, the birds are not
completely covered, he
said. But the most affected are the diving birds,
which catch their prey
underwater. They die either from the toxic effects
of the oil or from
starvation once they can no longer dive.
The blame game is beginning as well. Though the
cause of the Erika's
wreck is not clear, the captain of the ship was
not only placed under legal
investigation but also was put in preventive
detention until Wednesday.
Politicians are calling for inquiries and blaming
the company whose oil
was being shipped, TotalFina. Philippe de
Villiers, a powerful national
politician who heads the regional department, is
calling for a boycott of
TotalFina gasoline.
Residents of this tiny island, with a population
of 4,800 in winter and
about 30,000 in summer, were hoping Thursday that
the latest weather
forecasts would prove true. The slick, at first
thought headed for Ile
d'Yeu by Christmas, now is predicted to hit north
of there, perhaps at St.
Nazaire, then reach the island on Monday.
This is a bitter time for the 200 or so affected
fishermen of the Ile d'Yeu
to be bringing in their equipment, when prices are
highest. Prices for the
fish they specialize in have in some cases doubled
during the Christmas
season, and they cannot share in the profit.
$$$$$$$$$$
have a good holidays, ds*